Steampunk-Fantasy Airships: What I have so far, and a little help please?

[META_mahn]

I'm about to run my own campaign in D&D, and I wanted to give my players something awesome.
So yes, I made airships. Full-out airships, not like the stuff you find in Eberron where you just buy one for transport. I made these things to fight, specifically because in my setting they were developed both for the military to fight against the Big Bad and for civilians to use to trade goods.

>>>WARNING: OVERCOMPLEXITY IMMINENT<<<

I decided on multiple components to these, each interacting differently. May or may not have been inspired by Guns of Icarus and Build 'N Shoots like Space Engineers and Robocraft.
Every airship would be split into its essentials: Frame, Hull, Lifting Method, Engine, Propulsion, Weapons, and Fuel. Naturally some ships can cut out on certain components (like a ship powered by an air elemental doesn't need propulsion or fuel; the air elemental is both the engine AND propulsion, also doesn't need to eat or anything) but these are all the components I'm thinking of.

Everything would serve a certain purpose, and there would be multiple "0 HP" conditions for the airship, like the frame being destroyed, the lift being destroyed, the crew being killed, etc. Additionally, the engine would interact with the propulsion and the total weight of the airship to impact its mobility. The lift will interact with the weight to get into the air, and the fuel will interact with the engine to have...some bookkeeping.

Aside from being absolutely nuts, ideally I want these to become something bigger than just simply another method to throw encounters at players. I want these to become something in the world that the players love, just about as important to them as that +5 equivalent sword or that quest giver that gives them the really awesome quests that haul them tens of thousands of gp's. I want the players to turn these things into essentially flying bases, and while running quests they can buy trade goods to also make them lots of coinage in the meantime.

Currently it's a little bit nuts for me, and although I bet I could get the mechanics out decently, they might not be too balanced. Additionally my material studies in the D&D world is sub-par. If any homebrewers out there would like a nice challenge or are just bored with no ideas, I'd love your help.

[TheYell]

Do it like Battletech. Make it customizable and calculable with a spreadsheet and you'll create the loyalty to the design.

Start with Size: Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Huge, Gargantuan, Colossal.

Costs should double with each size increase.
Components must match the hull size.
Components get a cost and weight rating. The better the heavier and most costly.
Give each engine a power rating. For instance an Medium Air Elemental gets a power rating of 10,000.
(Power Rating/Tonnage) x 6 = Game speed.

So a Medium ship of 750 tons with an air elemental has a game speed of 80 ft.
A Medium ship of 500 tons with an air elemental has a game speed of 120 ft.

Maneuverability should be assigned to hull size. Weight should determine hull size, you can't have a tiny ship that weighs as much as a Medium ship or a Huge ship that weighs as much as a Colossal.

Damage / Range should be assigned to Size. Big ships should have awesome long range firepower. Tiny ships have short range guns and lighter armor but be harder to hit.

EDIT Oops. What's the difference between Engine and Propulsion?

[META_mahn]

What's the difference between Engine and Propulsion?

Engine is planned to be things like the...engine. Propulsion is stuff like propellers. So in your car, the engine is that V4, V6 or V8 in the front hood. The propulsion are the wheels, and the axles attached, complete with the gears.

Since air elementals don't need gears and wheels and axles, they count as both engine AND propulsion. Just stick them into like a restraining thing and off you go. Same thing if the PCs want to stick stuff like rocket boosters (magical Orion drive or otherwise) onto their airship: Counts as both engine and propulsion.

But yeah. Those are some nice ideas. Good thing I haven't really finalized my design yet.

[TheYell]

Let us know what you come up with for a basic design. Even a small airship that can fight would shake things up in a good way.

[khadgar567]

Lets say we have medium one man ship can we put to engines to same thing ( let's say twin wind elementals)?

[META_mahn]

Lets say we have medium one man ship can we put to engines to same thing ( let's say twin wind elementals)?

Yeah, I don't see why not. In fact it makes it simpler when you lose engines: You lose exactly 1/(total engines) of your max speed.

[META_mahn]

Got a really basic Google Doc going. Will slowly write more.

[TheYell]

Good work! What do they burn for fuel?

[khadgar567]

Good work! What do they burn for fuel?

dm's choice if you ask me but for my twin elemental ship its basicly nothing

[META_mahn]

dm's choice if you ask me but for my twin elemental ship its basicly nothing

Yeah, I'm thinking of having elemental ships being zero fuel consumption, no need for propulsion parts, but the downside is they are on average slower than say if you used an engine and propulsion.

For fuel, yes, DM's choice. You could give them theoretically...anything. Though I'll have a stock list. Like coal, oil, alchemist's fire...

Yes, I said Alchemist's Fire.

[khadgar567]

can we build one man twin elemental engined ship cuz I want fast one man ship for my pc

[META_mahn]

can we build one man twin elemental engined ship cuz I want fast one man ship for my pc

You in theory could...ask your DM to homebrew around. I still haven't gotten around to homebrewing "understaff" penalties.

[khadgar567]

You in theory could...ask your DM to homebrew around. I still haven't gotten around to homebrewing "understaff" penalties.

you are talking to him

[META_mahn]

you are talking to him

Ah. That's nice, then. Airships are kind of big, so you'd require a person to drive the ship, a person to man the guns, and a person to make sure the engine doesn't blow up or anything, even just for a small airship. Technically speaking you could give the airship some sort of sentience so it drives itself, or get constructs to do it for you. The sentience would let it fly itself and dodge shots while you manned the guns, and the constructs would maintain the ship quite well.

[quzar]

I'd suggest taking a look at FFG's Legends & Lairs 'Sorcery & Steam'. The final chapter is a description of steampunk vehicles that are described through a framework of general vehicle characteristics, piloting, maneuvers, combat, etc. The layout might be exactly what you're looking for. As a sample, they have a description of 6 different areas/functions of the vehicle and detriments that occur once each of those areas receives different amounts of damage (speed, attack, maneuverability, or AC lowered or cargo lost).